


pint-size potential

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Series: giles raises baby buffy [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, baby buffy!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2018-12-13 14:20:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11761725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: Sod the Council and their archaic concepts of what made a child worthy. He was given a job to do, and he would do it, but he would do it his way.(au: Buffy's a baby Potential, and Giles is her new Watcher)





	1. Chapter 1

In comparison to England, California was unbearably hot. Giles was fairly certain that he was assigned _this_ particular location just because someone in the Council hated him. No respectable Watcher wanted an American Potential to raise, let alone a Potential in the middle of the bloody desert. Merrick had initially been assigned to the child, but then that four-year-old Potential had cropped up in England, and no one _else_ wanted to relocate to America to raise a baby.

So of course, the job went to Giles, the black sheep of the Council. He’d been working with them for long enough to merit the responsibility of training a Potential, though he had always imagined said Potential being a bit—older. Old enough to talk, certainly. Baby Potentials didn’t generally last that long, what with all the demons and vampires attempting to kill them—and bugger all, that was probably why he was being sent to care for this one. Giles did miss the days when Potentials were harder to find.

Tentatively, Giles entered the café, quietly surveying the room. A gaggle of giggly college girls wearing sweaters in similar shades of pink. A young couple who looked to be out on a date. A neat-looking middle-aged woman, standing primly next to a baby stroller. _Ah,_ thought Giles, and crossed the room. “Ms. Smythe?” he inquired.

The woman looked critically at him, then said, “I do hope you’re qualified for this sort of rigor, Mr. Giles. Infant Potentials are a particularly serious responsibility.” Giles tried to look into the stroller, but Ms. Smythe moved in front of him, adding, “To be blunt, the Council has assigned you to this child due to your particularly unsavory past. We believe that, if nothing else, you are at least suited to defend this child from harm until she is old enough to do so herself.”

This was thoroughly unnerving to Giles, who hadn’t thrown a punch in years. But he hadn’t bought a plane ticket and flown down to this hellishly sunny city just to go straight back with nothing to show for it, so he said coolly, “I can assure you that I am fully capable of protecting the Potential.”

“Good,” said Ms. Smythe. “We shall expect reports on her well-being.” Handing him a file folder, she added, “All the information you need—addresses, phone numbers—it’s in there. The keys to your home are in the pocket of the Potential’s baby stroller.”

“Thank you,” said Giles, who wasn’t at _all_ looking forward to living in Los Angeles. It seemed like some deeply tragic parody of an American sitcom—single father living alone in the big city, except the father wasn’t a father and the baby was one in a long line of possible preternaturally strong vampire killers. He took the folder from Ms. Smythe. Then, stepping neatly around her, he looked down into the stroller.

The Potential, the little girl he was now tasked with guarding until adulthood, was wearing a pink-and-blue striped onesie and bundled in one of the standard Council baby blankets. She was wearing a small hat and little mittens, one of which seemed to be missing, and she was fast asleep.

“What’s her name?” Giles inquired softly.

“That’s hardly relevant, is it?” Ms. Smythe sounded a bit exasperated. “Right now, your responsibility is to bring the Potential to your new apartment and make sure that the proper magical wards are placed to keep her safe.”

“But—”

“As I’ve said, all the information you need is in the folder,” said Ms. Smythe shortly. “Kindly do not dawdle, Mr. Giles.”

Giles pressed his lips together, taking the stroller and carefully wheeling it out of the café. He didn’t look back at Ms. Smythe; he _hoped_ that he wouldn’t have to see her again.

About five feet from Giles’s car, there was a slight dip in the sidewalk, which jostled the stroller ever so slightly. This woke the Potential, who took one look at Giles and immediately started to cry.

 _Ah, yes,_ Giles thought. _This is exactly what a headache feels like._ Wheeling the stroller over to his car, he deposited the file folder in the front seat and carefully lifted the Potential out of the stroller. She cried _harder._

“Shh,” said Giles awkwardly, trying to bounce the Potential a bit. “There now. We’re off to a new apartment.” Opening the other car door, he placed the sobbing Potential in the baby seat, thought for a moment, then found the file folder again, flipping through it. “ _Buffy Summers?”_ he repeated. “Good lord, do all Americans name their children like this?”

The Potential wailed.

Giles hesitated, then took her back out of the car seat. “Well,” he said, holding the Potential— _Buffy_ —so that she was facing him. “Buffy Summers. I-I expect we’ll have to get used to each other, or this will be a very difficult arrangement for both of us, all right?”

Buffy spit up on his jacket.

Giles had had experience with much more toxic and potentially fatal substances (coming into contact with many different kinds of demons did happen to also mean coming into contact with many different kinds of bloods, fluids, and secretions), but no one—child or otherwise—had ever _spit up on his good tweed jacket._ Thoroughly upset, Giles was tempted to buckle Buffy back up into her car seat and just drive home without any other clumsy attempts at comfort; it was clear he wasn’t suited for this, anyway, and Watchers weren’t supposed to be _comforting—_

Then Giles looked down at Buffy. She had very wide, teary grey eyes, and looked just about as distressed as he felt. That wasn’t a Council-approved baby hat, Giles realized, and the outfit she was wearing most definitely wasn’t picked for her by the Council. It seemed very likely that Buffy’s mother had given her to the Council fairly recently—perhaps even today.

“Oh,” said Giles softly. For the first time, he felt a strange twist of sympathy and sadness. Most parents gave up their children willingly after some sort of traumatic incident or attack, and he did remember hearing that his Potential’s mother had nearly been attacked by a particularly clever vampire. But what struck him most about the situation was that Buffy knew none of this. All that she knew—all that she _could_ know—was that she’d woken up without her mother there. “There now,” he said softly, and this time he genuinely did want to comfort her. “It’s all right.”

Buffy sniffled, still looking somewhat distressed.

Carefully, Giles removed his handkerchief from his front pocket, dabbing gently at Buffy’s face. “You’re tired, aren’t you?” he inquired gently. “I woke you up. I’m sorry about that.” Strangely, he felt that Buffy was on some sense aware of the change in his voice, because she seemed to be calming down. “Let’s get you to the apartment,” he said, placing her carefully in the baby seat and strapping her in. “You can rest there, and I,” he shrugged off his jacket, folding it carefully before placing it in the front seat, “will perhaps wash my jacket.”

In the baby seat, Buffy rubbed her cheek with her fist and looked at him with a forlorn expression. Giles shut her car door, packed up the stroller, and got into the car himself, making sure that the radio was at a low volume before flipping it on. He turned it to a station with classical music, looking back at Buffy. “How’s that?” he inquired.

Buffy whimpered.

“No?” Completely by accident, Giles changed the radio station to a peppy American pop station. “Oh, good lord,” he muttered, and was about to change it again when he saw that Buffy looked—not quite happy, but at least a bit calmer. “Right,” he said, dryly amused. “Well, you’re very clearly an American.”

Buffy made a sleepy _hmm_ noise and rested her cheek against the side of the baby seat.

Giles hesitated, thinking, then rummaged in the satchel that he’d tucked under the front seat, finding the small, raggedy baby blanket that Buffy’s mother had given to the Council for her to keep. He had been instructed to keep the blanket only for when Buffy had been a quiet, well-behaved baby, but—Buffy was too small to really understand that, and he was beginning to realize how many parts of this arrangement were thoroughly unfair to her.

“Here,” he murmured, turning into the backseat and holding the blanket out to Buffy. She snatched it from him immediately, holding it very tightly and looking at him with bright, wide eyes. “Let’s go to the apartment, shall we?”

* * *

 

The “apartment” actually turned out to be a rather nice two-bedroom house. Giles supposed that this spoke to the fact that many of the Council members had old money. There was a rather nice living room, a sunny, well-lit kitchen, a study, and then two bedrooms upstairs. Giles’s room was quite lovely—olive green wallpaper, a comfortable bed, an easy chair by the window—and seeing it made him feel a bit better about the whole situation. He could imagine living here.

Buffy’s room was sparsely decorated, with only a small crib and a set of drawers. The walls were painted an unpleasant off-white that made the room feel clinical and lifeless.

“Absolutely not,” said Giles flatly, Buffy in his arms, and walked them both back to his bedroom.

Buffy, now well rested and significantly more cheerful, tried to grab his glasses. Something about that made Giles feel very happy—he didn’t like the thought of her being a miserable, afraid child in this house, though that seemed to be what the Council was encouraging. Gently, he removed her tiny hand from his face, placing her down in the middle of the bed.

“Stay here,” he said, and then began the arduous task of moving the crib from Buffy’s bedroom to his.

 _How_ on earth single parents managed to do things like this, Giles could not and would never understand. Not to mention that it was very clear that the Council had arranged the furniture in his room in such a way that it would be incredibly difficult to find space for a crib there, but Giles refused to be discouraged. With Buffy half-watching, half-staring-with-interest-at-the-ceiling, Giles managed to remove the easy chair from his bedroom, shove it into Buffy’s room, and place the crib by the window where the chair had been. Exhausted, he collapsed onto the bed.

Buffy rolled over and into his side, looking curiously up at him.

“You’re right,” said Giles blearily, “it is quite a nice ceiling,” and fell asleep.

The nap only ended up lasting five minutes, because Buffy attempted to take off his glasses again, which woke Giles up. He did feel a bit better, though; awake enough to pick up Buffy and place her in the crib with her baby blanket. She began to chew on one of the edges.

Giles went back into the awful white room (eventually it _would_ be Buffy’s room, he decided, as soon as it had a better coat of paint) and opened the drawers, looking through the baby clothing. They were all very plain, monochromatic items, lots of small white socks and beige onesies and a set of gray pajamas he supposed Buffy could wear to bed that night. None of the colors seemed to suit a baby who liked pop music and had a bright pink blanket dotted with rainbow hearts.

“I shall have to go shopping,” Giles said to himself, and shut the drawer he was looking through. This room really was incredibly off-putting.

Re-entering his room, he found Buffy lying on her back and looking significantly less interested in the ceiling. He lifted her up and out of the crib, walking her back downstairs so that they could get a better look at the rest of the house. There was a cheap, barely-functional high chair in the kitchen, and no baby food in the refrigerator— _honestly,_ the Council’s inability to understand the needs of a growing child was becoming clearer by the second.

The study was full of the boxes that Giles had sent for from England. He could work on unpacking tomorrow; it seemed as though today would be spent writing up a shopping list for Buffy, whose tiny hand was now tightly curled around a fistful of his shirt. When Giles looked down at her, Buffy held up her baby blanket, all but shoving it in his face.

“You like pink, I’d wager,” Giles quipped.

Buffy looked at him with the quiet solemnity that Giles had only ever seen on very small children, then draped the blanket over his head.

* * *

 

Giles looked over the file folder that night, Buffy now clad in the awful gray Council pajamas and asleep in her crib. A few papers on job options, a few maps of his neighborhood, an emergency phone list, and a neatly printed information sheet regarding Buffy. _Buffy Anne Summers,_ it read, _aged five months, unlikely Slayer status._

_Unlikely Slayer status._

Something in Giles twisted very hard at that. This wasn’t any kind of great responsibility; this was a lost-cause Watcher raising a lost-cause Potential just because the Council didn’t have anywhere else to put them both. He’d given up his life in England for this, all to take care of a girl who might never get called in the first place. A girl who could have lived with her mother for longer than just a few months, if not for the Council’s foolish determination to keep tabs on every single possible Slayer in the world.

He placed the information sheet down and left the bedroom, angry and hurt and tired and sad all in one. He’d thought that there was some _reason_ that justified his new status as Buffy’s caregiver, but it was abundantly clear what the Council thought of both of _them._

Downstairs, the phone rang. Giles ran a hand through his hair, then went to answer it.

 _“Mr. Giles.”_ Travers sounded more bored than anything. _“I’m calling to make sure that you have arrived safely in Los Angeles. Is the Potential with you?”_

Giles was starting to like the word _Potential_ less and less. It felt like more of a trap than a word. How many girls were stolen away from their families, raised for a calling that might never even be theirs in the first place? It might have been one thing if he’d been greeted with a girl old enough to talk and laugh and tell him what _she_ thought of the whole affair, but Buffy was never even given a choice about her life being turned upside down. Buffy was too young to even understand that her life _had_ been turned upside down.

_“Mr. Giles?”_

“Yes,” said Giles heavily. “The Potential is with me.”

 _“Excellent,”_ said Travers somewhat indifferently. _“I am assuming you have read the documentation we provided you with?”_

“I have.” Giles didn’t trust himself to say anything more than that.

 _“Then you will understand why we will not be requiring monthly reports,_ ” Travers informed him. _“A Potential who is less likely to be Called is of less relevance to the Council at this juncture, though that may change as time goes on. You shall send us a written summary of the Potential’s development each year.”_

“I understand.” The jumble of emotions had settled down to a less specific “awful.”

 _“Thank you. Good day.”_ There was a _click,_ and then the dial tone sounded.

Giles hung up the phone and sat down on the couch. It stung, to be cast aside, but more than that—the child upstairs, entrusted to his care simply because she wasn’t of relevance to the Council and he wasn’t of any use to anyone. What sort of a caretaker could he be to her if the Council thought so little of him?

For the first time in a very long while, Giles felt acutely aware of the absences in his life. It had been a long time since he’d felt himself a part of something, and even his involvement with the Council couldn’t erase the fact that there was no one who could tell him that he _was_ suited for this position.

No one but himself, really.

Well. There was one more person in his life now, and—and Giles wanted to do right by her. Sod the Council and their archaic concepts of what made a child worthy. He was given a job to do, and he would do it, but he would do it  _his_ way.

Giles pulled himself up off the couch, climbed the stairs, and entered his bedroom, studying the small girl in the crib. “Unlikely Slayer status,” he said softly, and brushed a gentle hand across the top of Buffy’s head. “Well, then, I suppose it doesn’t matter whether I raise you according to Council standards, does it?”


	2. Chapter 2

Buffy Anne Summers, aged five-and-a-half months, was sitting on the floor, banging on a pot with her rattle. Giles had propped her up against the wall while he made them both breakfast, figuring that she couldn’t make _too_ much noise with just a rattle, but Buffy had somehow acquired the pot and seemed hell-bent on making as much of a ruckus as possible.

“How did you _get that,_ I put it in a cabinet you can’t reach,” Giles said with mild exasperation, turning to remove the rattle from Buffy’s hand. She uttered an indignant shriek of protest, but let go, smiling widely.

At _him._

That was—well.

Giles smiled back, very shyly, and removed the pot from Buffy’s reach, handing her back the rattle. She shook it at him, still smiling as he turned to heat up her formula.

His life wasn’t as quiet as it had been back in England, which was strange to think about when considering the fact that Buffy was the only new person in it. But Giles was learning rapidly that Buffy was a rather bubbly child, very social and playful and incredibly unaware that he _wasn’t_ any of those things. She took up a lot of space in his life with barely any effort.

Turning away from the microwave, Giles lifted Buffy and her rattle up into the new high chair. “There we are,” he said, smoothing down Buffy’s soft, downy hair. Just enough of it had grown for Giles to see clearly that it was coming in blonde. “Now. Are you ready for breakfast?”

This was when the doorbell rang. Buffy squeaked, surprised, and grabbed at Giles’s hand.

Giles, who was learning very fast that Buffy left alone could and would start trying to figure out some most-likely-unsafe way to entertain herself, carefully removed Buffy from her high chair, bouncing her in his arms. She beamed at him. “Yes, hello,” he said, smiling back. “Come on, let’s answer the door, see who it is.”

It was a catalogue. More accurately, it was their mail, but on top of all the mail, there was a family catalogue. Buffy saw the girl in the pink dress on the front of the catalogue and reached for it, very nearly managing to fall out of Giles’s arms. Giles held her very tightly and picked up the catalogue, mostly because he was worried that Buffy might try and figure out how to get to it if he left it outside.

They returned to the kitchen, Buffy squirming in Giles’s arms to try and get a good look at the catalogue. Giles set her back down in the high chair, placing the catalogue on the kitchen counter where Buffy could see it. “Not even a year old and she’s already trying to get me to go shopping,” he said, mouth quirking up in an amused little grin as he handed Buffy her baby formula.

Buffy barely even looked at the bottle, reaching for the catalogue.

“Absolutely _not,_ ” said Giles, gentle but firm. “Do you think I don’t know why yesterday’s newspaper is in shreds on the floor in my room?” Nevertheless, he opened the catalogue, flipping absently through the pages. They could do with a changing table, he thought, and a better crib, and perhaps a new stroller, one that _didn’t_ belong to the Council, and—a new high chair, of course, because this one was barely functional.

Buffy grabbed at a page, tearing it.

“Oh, lord,” said Giles, an unpleasant thought occurring to him, “I’m going to have to baby-proof the bookshelves, aren’t I?”

Seemingly unconcerned by Giles’s newfound fear for his rarer volumes, Buffy decided to forgo the catalogue and instead focus in on her bottle, surveying Giles as though trying to figure out why he wasn’t having breakfast himself.

Giles took this as a sign that he _should_ eat, and quickly prepared some cereal. He hadn’t had as much time to cook, lately, but he also hadn’t had as much time to miss it. As he ate, he made a mental list of the day’s activities, which made him feel a bit lighter. Taking Buffy out shopping—that was stressful, but quite fun. Everything was new to her. He was still looking into job applications (there was a position as a museum curator that looked promising), and trying to figure out how to balance said job with raising a child.

He’d heard that other Watchers merely placed protective wards around the house, cast a spell that would take care of all of the baby’s physical needs, and went on with their day, but he couldn’t leave Buffy alone for that long. She thrived on attention and affection, and gave as good as she got. He didn’t think he could leave her isolated, even if he knew she was physically safe.

Buffy cut off Giles’s train of thought by dropping her now-empty bottle from her high chair and laughing as though watching the bottle fall was the height of comedy. Giles finished the last of his cereal, picked up the bottle, and rinsed it out.

Buffy made a small, cross noise and hit her rattle against the tray of the high chair.

“I am _not_ playing that game where you drop your bottle and I give it back,” Giles informed her. “Those were fifteen very frustrating minutes.”

There was silence, and then Buffy made a noise that sounded endearingly like _hmph!_ before going back to shaking her rattle.

* * *

 

Giles was generally a quick shopper, but shopping with Buffy was a thoroughly different experience than shopping by himself. She kept on trying to grab things off the rack, most of which weren’t geared towards children, and ended up grabbing one solitary shoe off one of the shelves while Giles was trying to figure out where the baby section was. This led to a good three minutes of Giles trying to tug the shoe from Buffy, and _then_ five minutes of trying to figure out where she had gotten the shoe from in the first place, at which point Buffy took advantage of his distraction and snatched a set of bright pink flip-flops.

Giving in, Giles decided to just let her hold onto the damn things and try to reach the baby section.

Apparently, there were a _lot_ of things one could buy for an infant. This was a little confusing to Giles, who got the sense that Buffy herself wouldn’t really appreciate most of these items. He suspected that some of it was for the aesthetic sensibilities of the parents. “Anything here suit you?” he inquired gently of Buffy.

Buffy was chewing on the edge of her baby blanket again. Giles was breaking five to seven rules in the Council Handbook by letting Buffy have a comfort object _and_ letting her take it outside the house, but Buffy didn’t do all that well being parted with her baby blanket, and he figured that a baby who had been thrown into a completely new situation deserved as many small comforts as he could give her. She looked impassively at the various outfits and toys, then sneezed.

Giles decided to try and choose some things himself. Picking up a small set of pink footie pajamas, he inquired, “How’s this?”

“Aa,” said Buffy, holding the flip-flops out to him.

“No, it’s—it’s not a trade-off,” Giles began, then considered what he was saying. “Actually—yes. It is a trade-off. Here, you give me those—” He took the flip-flops from Buffy, who took the footie pajamas and seemed very satisfied with herself.

Turning back to the clothing, he found Buffy a few more outfits (well, twelve, but she _did_ need clothing with a splash of color in it, and he certainly wasn’t having her dressed in that Council-approved rubbish when they were the reason he had to go shopping in the first place) and then put them in the shopping cart, along with the pink flip-flops. By a surprising coincidence, the flip-flops were exactly his size, and Buffy _had_ picked them out.

“ _Mr._ Giles?”

Still holding the pink flip-flops, Giles turned, heart catching in his chest. “Yes?”

Ms. Smythe was surveying him with a thin-lipped expression, eyes narrowed. Without a word, she looked towards the baby blanket in Buffy’s arms.

“Ah,” said Giles.

Ms. Smythe looked pointedly at the brightly colored clothing in Giles’s shopping cart.

“Well—” began Giles.

“Regardless of the importance of your charge to the Council, Mr. Giles,” said Ms. Smythe, yanking the baby blanket away from a startled Buffy, who began to cry (Giles’s heart caught horribly, but he didn’t dare reach out to comfort her in front of Ms. Smythe), “you would do well not to forget that you are _not_ raising a child.”

Giles felt a rush of anger. _How_ on earth any individual could look at an infant and deem them a weapon was beyond him, but—but he’d be damned if he lost control in front of Ms. Smythe. “I understand that completely,” he said coolly, taking the baby blanket back from Ms. Smythe as casually as he could manage. “The blanket was a reward for good behavior, and it is thoroughly unprofessional of you to impede the development of my charge.”

He took an incredibly unprofessional amount of delight in watching Ms. Smythe flush an embarrassed red. “My apologies,” she said thinly. “I merely assumed—”

“Much of the Council clothing doesn’t fit Buffy,” good lord, Giles had forgotten how easy it was to lie to these people, “and it was more than necessary to take her shopping with me, as the protective wards I have set up don’t seem to be working as well as I would like. Kindly do _not_ jump to unwarranted conclusions without inquiry, Ms. Smythe.”

“Thank you, yes,” Ms. Smythe managed.

Giles knelt down, gently handing the blanket back to Buffy. She hiccupped, looking tearfully up at him, and he very quietly brushed a hand over hers. “It’s all right,” he said, too quietly for Ms. Smythe to hear.

Buffy held tightly to his hand for a moment, then let go. Giles took this as a sign to turn back to Ms. Smythe. “Why are you here?” he asked, too focused on holding back anger to remember how to be cordial and casual. “I’d have thought that your duties in Los Angeles are over.”

“Oh, hardly.” Ms. Smythe looked startled by the notion. “For the first year of a Potential’s development, if they are living in a large city, it’s Council policy for their Watcher to be monitored. Were it a smaller town, it might be a bit different, but—”

“But this is Los Angeles,” Giles finished. “Too many opportunities for vampires to strike.”

“Too many opportunities for a Watcher to disregard his duties,” corrected Ms. Smythe. “And mark my words, Mr. Giles, I am more than certain that you are on the path to doing just that.” She gave him a thin, unpleasant smile. “I’ll see you soon, I expect,” she said, and turned on her heel, exiting the aisle and leaving Giles with a sniffling Buffy.

Giles picked Buffy up out of her stroller and hugged her very tightly. “I will _not_ let them take you,” he said, pulling back to look at Buffy. “Do you understand me?”

Buffy handed him the footie pajamas and the baby blanket, then took his glasses out of his shirt pocket, examining them very seriously. Deciding that his glasses were a small price to pay for an occupied baby, Giles placed Buffy back in the stroller and resumed his shopping.

The shaken feeling didn’t subside, and hung over him for the rest of the outing. Giles hadn’t considered the fact that he might be monitored for at least a year, and certainly not that his monitor would be so clearly biased against him. He wasn’t sure if he could make it a year in Los Angeles without somehow slipping up, especially if Ms. Smythe continued to be so cruel and callous to a still-adjusting Buffy.

Currently, Buffy had occupied herself with the small cloth doll Giles had bought her, trying to put Giles’s glasses on its face. Something about that made Giles feel very happy, which was most certainly going to be considered a problem in the eyes of the Council. And—at some point there would be a home investigation, most likely, and Giles wouldn’t be _that_ good at hiding the baby blanket or explaining away the cloth doll—

He breathed out, trying to calm himself. There _had_ to be a simpler way of doing things. He just needed to figure that way out.

 

That night, Giles researched while Buffy (now clad in a purple shirt and a pair of tiny overalls) sat next to him on the sofa and played a game with her doll that seemed to consist of trying to pull out its yarn hair. She didn’t seem to be doing all that well at it, which was more than a relief to Giles. He could only handle one crisis at a time, really.

According to the handbook, the Council wouldn’t look kindly on Giles if he just up and moved to a smaller town in the middle of a monitoring session. There had been cases in the early seventies where Watchers had done such a thing and been investigated even more thoroughly, just to prove that they weren’t avoiding the prospect of being found an unfit guardian to a Potential.

So moving away was out of the question. Avoiding the monitor was out of the question, because Ms. Smythe was already out to get him in the first place, and avoiding her wouldn’t make Giles look all that good in her eyes.

“There has to be _some_ way to handle this,” said Giles, frustrated.

Buffy placed her baby blanket in the middle of Giles’s handbook, looking seriously up at him as though she’d entrusted him with something very precious.

“Oh—” Giles blinked, touched. “Thank you,” he said softly, picking up the baby blanket. “I appreciate it.”

Buffy looked at him for a few more seconds, then went back to trying to yank the doll’s hair out. Smiling, Giles went back to reading the handbook. He rather understood why Buffy liked this blanket; it _was_ rather comforting.

Looking back down at the handbook, Giles noticed that Buffy had inadvertently turned the page; the book was now open to the chapter on _Active Hellmouths._ Giles was about to try and find his section again when he noticed something rather interesting in the second paragraph.

_Any Watcher choosing to relocate to an active Hellmouth in order to further research its capabilities will be fully funded and fully supported, whether or not they have a Potential in their charge. For Watchers with infant Potentials, no monitor will follow them to the active Hellmouth, as more than one Watcher may be seen as a threat by the demons residing there._

Giles looked at the handbook, eyes wide. A _Hellmouth?_ He’d lived on one before, briefly, for similar research purposes, and it hadn’t actually been a place of danger as long as one stayed in at night and kept a level head. It would certainly be difficult to hide from the Council, but filing paperwork to claim he’d be a live-in researcher might actually make him look more useful in their eyes.

This could work. This could reasonably, actually work. He just had to find the closest possible Hellmouth. Scanning the small map of various United States Hellmouths (there weren’t many), Giles’s eyes landed on the one in California.

“A small town,” he said, soft and thoughtful.

Next to him, Buffy really _did_ pull out a few of the doll’s yarn hairs and began to wail. “Shh, come here,” Giles murmured, picking up Buffy and the doll and bouncing them both in his arms.

* * *

The rest of the night was spent trying to fix Buffy’s doll while simultaneously fill out the paperwork needed for a transfer to Sunnydale. Buffy sat on the kitchen counter and pressed random buttons on Giles’s portable radio, changing the stations with neither rhyme nor reason.

Strange, how accustomed Giles was becoming to nights like these. Strange and wonderful.


	3. Chapter 3

The doorbell rang at three in the morning. This wasn’t what woke Giles up, though; he was woken up when Buffy, startled by the doorbell, began to wail loudly. Trying to figure out what might have upset Buffy at this ungodly hour, Giles sat up in bed, at which point he heard the doorbell ring and thought he might understand.

There was really only one person who would be ringing his bell at this hour. Giles turned on the light, staring at his bedroom, which was strewn with Buffy’s toys. Not to mention that he was breaking at least seven rules, having Buffy’s crib in his bedroom— “I’m _coming,_ ” he shouted, running down to answer the doorbell.

“Not at all prompt, Mr. Giles,” said Ms. Smythe disapprovingly. “I would expect you to be already packed. Your flight leaves in three hours.”

“I’m sorry?” Giles managed, half-wheezing. “When you contacted me—yesterday—you said—”

“Times change,” Ms. Smythe replied. “A true Watcher is prepared for any and every possibility. Be in the car in ten minutes.” With that, she turned and hurried down the driveway.

Giles stood there, somewhat frozen by the sheer panic he was currently grappling with. He’d packed, of course, had made sure to do so the day after he decided to apply for his transfer to Sunnydale. But there was still the matter of the toys upstairs, as well as the possibility of Ms. Smythe or another Watcher seeing the crib in the bedroom when the Council showed up to pack up the house, and he had to figure out how to move a rather heavy crib from his room to the old bedroom in ten minutes without Ms. Smythe noticing.

By some miracle, Giles managed to find it in him to shut the door and hurry upstairs. Buffy was still sobbing in her crib, and as soon as he lifted her out, she grabbed onto his shirt with both hands.

“No, see, this is actually a bit counterintuitive,” Giles stammered, because sometimes his talking calmed them both down a bit, “seeing as if you hold on to me, you obstruct me from making sure these things are out of my room, which means you’ll be placed with another Watcher and I’m sure—that is, I _hope_ that’s not something you’d prefer, I really have been trying—”

Buffy’s crying was beginning to stop, but it would still take about five minutes for her to fully calm down. Giles placed her carefully down on the bed and hurried to pick up the toys, trying to figure out a non-incriminating place to put them while also trying to not give in and comfort a still-whimpering Buffy. Really, all of this was a complete disaster. He felt rather certain that Ms. Smythe was trying to catch him in the act of being kind to a child, which wasn’t making him feel all that fond of the Council. He rather missed his demon-raising days at this point.

Giles gave up and just started throwing toys out the window into the backyard. They weren’t Buffy’s favorites, anyway, and they could be left behind; he’d made sure to pack her favorite toys first so as to hide them as best as possible from the Council. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so overzealous with the toy-buying, but he’d been more than a bit touched by the whole they-were-both-useless-to-the-Council thing, and he liked thinking of taking care of Buffy as his purpose, and he’d never had all that much of a childhood what with a Watcher father and a tired, quiet mother and—

Outside, Ms. Smythe honked the car horn, even though it had only been about three minutes.

“I can make up some convincing story about the crib,” Giles told Buffy, and hastened to get dressed.

He didn’t have enough time to get Buffy properly dressed, but he did grab his carry-on luggage and wrap Buffy in a warm Council-approved blanket with two minutes to spare. Pausing on the stairs, Giles quietly bounced Buffy in his arms, trying to comfort her a bit before they entered Ms. Smythe’s car and were faced with a possible lecture.

Buffy exhaled softly; it sounded a bit like an exhausted sigh. “I quite agree,” said Giles, mouth twitching, and felt a little bit better.

* * *

 

Ms. Smythe started in on Giles as soon as he got into the car. “I’ll have you know,” she said, “that it is _most_ unusual for an inexperienced Watcher with a low-relevance infant Potential to decide he would like to research a Hellmouth. Most unusual, especially with _your_ background. I myself lobbied quite hard for your application to be denied.”

“Oh, I’m sure you did,” said Giles without really thinking about it. He ignored what he was sure was a very nasty look from Ms. Smythe, focusing on buckling Buffy (who was already drifting back to sleep) into the baby seat. “Will you be flying us to Sunnydale as well, or is your obvious distaste for everything I stand for limited only to Los Angeles?”

“You are a _horribly_ unqualified Watcher,” said Ms. Smythe, which didn’t really answer the question.

Giles spent most of the car ride with one hand on the baby seat, steadying it as surreptitiously as possible. Ms. Smythe seemed almost determinedly focused on the road, which took a significant amount of pressure off of Giles. He even managed to tuck Buffy’s blanket around her a bit.

 _Truly,_ he thought, _Eyghon was nothing compared to this sort of thing._ It wasn’t true, but he felt like he was entitled to be a bit dramatic when he’d been woken at three in the bloody morning. Giles was not going to miss Ms. Smythe at all.

After what seemed like a very long car ride but what was probably about fifteen minutes of angry silence and driving, Ms. Smythe pulled into the airport parking lot, at which point she said very pointedly, “You can _leave_ now, Mr. Giles. Get your bags from the trunk and take the Potential with you.”

“ _Thank_ you,” said Giles very sarcastically. “Goodness knows I would have forgotten her without your help.” To make a point, he picked up the entire car seat without unbuckling Buffy and staggered over to the back of the trunk.

“ _Mr._ Giles, that car seat is Council property,” Ms. Smythe snapped from inside the car.

Giles was at this point much too tired to really consider how openly hostile he was being, and much too fed up to really care. He’d only been with the Council for a few years, and it had been a very long and very frustrating process of earning back their trust. He wasn’t all that fond of the organization, even if a few years ago he’d believed them to be his salvation; perhaps it’d be different if he’d spent longer than a few months behind his desk in the British Museum, but he supposed he’d never really find out. “I am _not_ holding my Potential on my lap for an entire bloody plane ride, it is _unsafe_ and you should know that,” he shouted back, placing Buffy’s car seat on the ground so that he could open the trunk. “And this is your fault for showing up at three in the damn morning just because you’re on some sort of godforsaken power trip—”

Buffy, waking up at the sound of Giles’s raised voice, started to _screech._

Giles was suddenly beginning to understand very fast why parenting tended to be a two-person job. He’d dealt with the aftermath of raising a demon, he’d dealt with shame and distrust from nearly all his colleagues, but hearing Buffy upset in the middle of the parking lot and knowing he was the only person there to calm her was somehow one of the most isolating experiences he’d faced.

“This is going in my report!” Ms. Smythe shouted.

“Excellent!” Giles shouted back. “Let them know you’ve broken protocol by changing my flight plans the day of my departure!”

Interestingly enough, Ms. Smythe didn’t seem to have a response to that. Giles felt an exhausted sense of smugness, and celebrated his victory by unbuckling Buffy from her car seat and giving her a kiss on the top of her head. She still seemed quite upset, but settled down as Giles (struggling with the luggage a bit) entered the airport. He didn’t bother to look back.

Before checking his baggage, Giles donned a sort of front-facing baby backpack thing (he had  _no_ idea what it was called and was at this point afraid to ask), strapping Buffy to his front so as to keep his hands free. She fell asleep quite quickly. Giles was more than a bit jealous.

He hadn’t had time to feel lonely in the chaotic mess of adjusting to taking care of an infant, but suddenly the feeling was settling in and he felt _awful._ Sunnydale was a Hellmouth, certainly, but Giles was the only supernatural researcher there, and he was soon going to have to be doing extra work on top of managing whatever job the Council had found him _and_ researching Sunnydale. He was going to be doing three times the work he’d signed up for as a Watcher, and he wasn’t going to have anyone else for company. Not that he ever _had_ had a Watcher he’d been close to, but—it was still incredibly lonely, realizing something like this.

As Giles was mulling over this, Buffy stirred and opened her eyes. They were a very soft gray color, those eyes, and she looked up at Giles with the same intent curiosity that she always did, as though he might have changed in the few minutes she’d been sleeping.

Giles thought about the first time he’d seen Buffy open her eyes, and about how much had changed in his life after that. He thought about Buffy’s independent spirit and how much of a challenge she seemed to love posing to him. He thought about finding out what kind of person Buffy might become.

“I’ll manage, I think,” he said softly. Then he headed towards the plane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic has always been intended as a three-chapter prequel to a series of short fics, so don't be put off by its rather abrupt ending! rest assured that there's more coming; i've already started on a second installment and have absolutely zero intention of abandoning this for months on end (anymore)


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